Treat yourself with a nice dinner

Here a nice red wine Risotto with some tender beef filet. With that one of my favorite red wines, a delicious Malbec from Argentina.

Sunday Baking Time

Ginny's Sugo

For 4 servings

1 big red onion
3dl good red wine (same as the one you will be drinking with this marvellous dish)
7 nice medium/big tomatoes
some fresh basil
some fresh or dried oregano
dried chili
pepper
salt
Pasta (Spaghetti, Penne or whatever you like)

 


Well this dish can actually be eaten at any occasion. Who doesn't like a wonderful nice plate of pasta with a delicious self-made sugo. I actually "created" this dish, since I just had some beautiful tomatoes left in my fridge and didn't want to eat 3 pounds of tomato/mozzarella salad. So, what else to do? Well there you go. Also, you can increase this recipe to how much you need, and keep the extra sauce in the fridge or freezer for later use. So let's get started...

First of all we have to get rid of the tomato skin. Yes, I know, why peel tomatoes? Well the answer is very simple: it's much better, gives a better texture, softer in the mouth. The skin is tough and adds nothing to the taste.

Boil a large pan of water, and prepare a large bowl of cold water. Remove the small green stalk from each tomato. Then with a good knife cut a cross in the top of each tomato. Then water is boiling, put two or three tomatos in the pan. Leave them in for 20 seconds. The skin will split, starting from the top incision. Remove them with a skimmer or a spoon, and plunge immediately into cold water. Continue with all tomatoes. Remove tomatoes from cold water, peel off the skin with a knife discard it. With a knife remove the green and hard core of the tomatos ("the bone"), and discard it.

Then start by chopping the onions finely. Put them in a pan with some olive oil and heat up until nice & glassy (for about 7min on medium heat). As soon as you can smell the wonderful smell and the sizzle, pour in the red wine and let it simmer for about another 5min.

After that start adding your prepared tomatos. Add the fresh or dried basil, oregano & chili and let it simmer on low heat for about 2 hours. Stir it from time to time to time, then taste it and add some salt & pepper as you wish. Also if you like it spicy add some more chili.

After the two hours are over, take a masher (yes same as for the potatos) and mash the tomatoes in the pan. You will just love the smell... trust me... Then just leave it on the stove.

Then start cooking your pasta, serve them nicely on a plate and add your magnificient sauce. Add a fresh leaf of basil on top for decoration & buon appetito!

Wine recommendation: Some nice, fruity red wine, i.e. a nice Primitivo

Music recommendation: Dean Martin, Carla Bruni, Marina Rei

Fig tart with goat cheese and lavender

For 4 servings

3 TS Honey
4dl Port wine
1 Pack of Puff Pastry (approx. 400gr)
5 ripe figs (cut in thin slices)
1 egg yolk
1dl cream
160gr goat cheese (4 small ones of 40gr)
5-6 lavender branches
1 round jagged cutter with about 12cm diameter

This dish is perfect as a starter if you plan a nice dinner with cheese, wine & bread. But also perfect as a simple dish to be served with a nice salad. The mixture of the tastes of the fresh figs, the goat cheese and the sweetness of the honey & port wine...  Delicious! Also this dish takes about 15min to prepare and about 15min to bake. So just perfect if you don't have enough time, but want to present a delicious & beautiful dish. So let's get started...

Pre-heat the oven to 190C. Melt the honey in a small pot on small/medium heat, the fill up with the port wine. Reduce the port wine on high heat to about 1/5 then take of the stove and let it cool down. With the cutter, cut out 4 circles and put them on baking paper on a baking tray. Mix the egg yolk and the cream and reap the 4 pastry circles with it. Now place the thin fig slices on each of the 4 pastry circles like roof tiles. Leave a small border of about 0.5cm on the pastry circles. No greatly brush the figs with the honey/port wine reduction on all 4 of the pastry circles. Finito! Now put it for about 15min in the oven. After 15min place one of the each small goat cheeses on the 4 pastry circle, and continue to bake for about 5min until the cheese slowly starts to melt.

Place each of the 4 tarts on a plate, again brush it generously with the honey/port wine reduction and decorate with a lavender branch. Bon appétit!

Wine recommendation: Some nice, fruity red wine, i.e. a nice Primitivo.

Music recommendation: Madeleine Peyroux, Carla Bruni, Mariza